The importance of communication skills to midwifery practice Essay

The importance of communication skills to midwifery practice - Essay Example Research emphasises the need to see interpersonal communication through interrelationships which develop taking into account the issues of power and diversity, and good communication likewise flourish through and revolve around the emotional dimensions of care work. Chant et al. (2001) indicated that in general in the care practices, effective communication skills on the part of the practitioner leads to greater satisfaction out of care. basically, patient satisfaction leads to compliance, which in turn minimises complaint rates, emotional and psychological distress (Chant et al. 2001). An effective communication to any patient on the part of the care giver induces many favourable changes in the client that may be conducive to positive health. Rogers et al. (1999) indicated that communicated patients are "better educated and empowered to participate in their own health decisions and as a result will make shared decisions" (p.175). These principles are also applicable in midwifery practice, where the definition of communication is same as elsewhere in the care professions. Communication means exchange of information, ideas, or feelings, which can be complex in the sense that this is a broad term indicating both verbal and nonverbal communication s. These become more complex in the healthcare settings due to the very nature of the interactions being complex, charged with emotions, and related to very personal feelings and situations. All these may affect the process of communication, and knowledge, training, and practice on communication skills is thus necessary to effect a clinically effective interpersonal communication, specially between the provider and the recipient. It has been estimated that communication skills and relationships are important parameters of healthcare services, and the practice of midwifery is not an exception to that. By the term relationships, it is meant interrelationships between the care

A Brief History of the Jews of Brazil Essay Example for Free

A Brief History of the Jews of Brazil Essay The history of Jews in Brazil is a unique case, because we do not know of many other countries in which they have been significantly present in the very first movements of that nationrsquos history, continuously participating in its economic and social development. In fact, since the ldquodiscoveryldquo of Brazil to the present time, the Jews, almost without interval, openly or disguised, have been integrated into the processes of formation of Brazilian nationality. My aim in this paper is to provide a summary of Jewish history in Brazil by highlighting four major historical periods The First Portuguese Period (1500-1630) The Dutch Period (1630 -1654) The Second Portuguese Period (1654-1822) and The Cosmopolitan Period (1822-1966). br / The First Portuguese Period (1500-1630)br / ?When Portugal was at the height of its expansion in the world, in 1500, Brazil was ldquodiscoveredrdquo by the kingdom. It was then simply military glory, coupled with the desire to enlarge the Catholic faith, that compelled the Portuguese to their grand maritime expeditions (Grinberg 15). But just these reasons alone would not have sufficed to promote the extraordinary expansion of Portugal. The great cycle of the Portuguese conquests would not have been achieved without the long period of scientific discoveries and improvements that preceded it, in which the Iberian Jews played such a key role. As a prime example of this involvement, in Henry the Navigatorrsquos quotNautical School of Sagresquot, the first Portuguese academy of navigation(founded in 1412), was employed one of the most famous cartographers of the fifteenth century, the Jewish Yehuda Cresques, whose main task was to teach Portuguese pilots the basics of navigation well as the production and handling of nautical instruments (Serebrenick and Lipiner 7). br / ?The Jewish contribution to the discovery of new routes and new lands to the Portuguese crown was not limited only to the scientific field, however, but also translated into direct participation in these dangerous travels, including the expedition that resulted in the discovery of Brazil. The fleet led by Pedro Alvares Cabral, included at least three Jewish advisers the astronomer Master John, Pedro Nunes the navigator, and Gaspar de Lemos, an interpreter and ship commander, rightly regarded by historians as partly responsible for the discovery of Brazil (Serebrenick and Lipiner 9). br / ?With increasing incentives of the Portuguese government towards the occupation and settlement of the Brazilian territory, more and more Iberic Jews began migrating to Brazil. Because the wealthier Portuguese and Spanish Jews sustained a lot of the territoryrsquos early economic progress, they were able enjoy considerable freedom of worship and custom (Grinberg 21). This panorama of tolerance contrasted sharply with the wave of hatred and discrimination that swept Portugal, where, like neighboring Spain, persecution was widespread. It is thus understandable that many Jews of 1 / 3 Portugal, affected by overwhelming religious persecution, felt compelled to try a new life in Brazil,which to them seemed like a safe haven where they could materialize their aspirations for peace and freedom. br / ? The Jewish community, thanks to strong immigration and natural growth, reached a reasonable proportion in comparison with the general population, enough to counter the risk of assimilation. Around 1570, however, things took a turn for the worse, as there began to appear signs of restrictions on freedom, which only grew with time (Serebrenick and Lipiner 12). The circumstances soon forced the Jews to return, much like those in the motherland, to a life of great caution and alertness. The first official manifestation of intolerance was found in 1573 in the city of Salvador, which installed an auto-de-fe. Paradoxically, but perhaps on purpose, the first victim was not a Jew, but a Frenchman who was accused of heresy, condemned and burned alive. In Bahia, the Inquisition remained (though inactive for many years) until 1593 (Grinberg 29). br /?In 1618, Bahia was the target of a new visitation of the Holy Office, during which time many Marranos were reported and pursued, among them many wealthy men of the sugar mills. This fact that prompted the first large wave of immigration of Jews within Brazil they left the Northeast in search of the more tolerant South, especially the captaincy of Satildeo Vicente (Satildeo Paulo), which was the most liberal region (Serebrenick and Lipiner 15). Because of the growing persecution of Jews in Portugal in the last decades of the sixteenth century, they began to emigrate not only to Brazil but also, inlarge numbers, to several countries of Western Europe, especially to Holland, where flourishing trade and religious tolerance prevailed (Grinberg 32). This allowed for the rapid formation of a large Jewish community, centered in the city of Amsterdam, rightly nicknamed the quotNew Jerusalemquot. The simultaneous emigration of Portuguese Jews to Brazil and the Netherlands, led to the establishment of a commercial and affective link between the Jews of Brazil and those of Holland (Serebrenick and Lipiner 15). br / The Dutch Period (1630-1654)br / ?The hope of the Brazilian Jews that their lot would improve due to some form of Dutch intervention did not fail. Through a series of attempts at the conquest of the Brazilian Northeast in the years 1624 to 1627, the Dutch finally succeeded on February 15, 1630. The city of Pernambuco was attacked by a powerful fleet of 70 ships, effectively beginning the occupation of the Northeast, which would last until 1654. The years of peaceful Dutch rule were few, but enough to enable the Jews to rapidly flourish economically, socially and culturally, building in Northeast Brazil one of the most thriving communities of the time (Grinberg 35). br / ?With the advent of the Dutch and the consequent deployment of a great religious tolerance, the landscape was changing. Uninterrupted waves of Jews flocked to Pernambuco from several countries, especially from Holland, bringing commercial experience and a wonderful spirit of achievement. These Jews from the Netherlands ndash who were largely former refugees from Portugal,Spain and France had the further advantage of speaking several languages Spanish, French, Ladino, Dutch, besides the most important, Portuguese, which was the language spoken in Brazil (Grinberg 35). A great number of them served as interpreters for the thousands of men in the Dutch army and navy, consisting of mercenaries Dutch, English, French, German, Polish and others who did not speak Portuguese. From simple interpreters, they increasingly became businessmen, merchants and landowners, coming to, in effect, virtually control the economic life of Brazilrsquos New Holland. The main street of Recife (in Pernambuco) was known as quotStreet of the Jewsquot and the port was called quotpier of the Jewsquot (Serebrenick and Lipiner 17). br /. The Second Portuguese Period (1654-1822)br / ?With the fall of Recife and subsequent surrender of the Dutch, the Jewish community in northeastern Brazil became largely scattered. A small portion of the people resigned to staying in the country, dispersing through its territory, while the majority opted for emigration. Of these, one group consisting of the richest and probably most connected in the Netherlands decided to return to Holland, while most preferred to face the unknown, venturing into more distant stops throughout 2 / 3 the Americas Guyana, West Indies and New Netherlands in the United States. Numerous Jewish settlements began to appear to the North, one of which would eventually lead to the extraordinary Jewish community of the United States of America (Grinberg 52). In North America, a group of 23 Jewswho left Recife immediately after its fall, camped on September 12, 1654, on the margins of the Hudson, in the village of New Amsterdam (now New York). br / ?As already mentioned, the exodus that took place after the expulsion of the Dutch did not cover the entire Jewish population of Northeast Brazil, since a good number of Marranos resolved to remain on the land they had learned to love. These remaining Jews eventually were able to peacefully spread throughout Brazil, including in areas of the Northeast itself, minimizing the appearance of their Jewish origin (Serebrenick and Lipiner 23). Unfortunately, the flames of persecution were to be once again fanned by the Inquisition. This new wave of terror unfolded for about 70 years, especially violent in the periods 1707 to 1711 and from 1729 to 1739, making the first half of the seventeenth century perhaps the darkest period of Jewish history in Brazil (Serebrenick and Lipiner 26). Only after 1770 would the conditions come to place that would forever eradicate the cancer of the Inquisition. To this day no one knows for sure how many Jews from Brazil fell victim to the Portuguese Inquisition. br / The Cosmopolitan Period (1822-1966)br / ?Once the country was made independent from the Portuguese crown, in 1822, full freedom of conscience was established. In the second half of the century, Jews from various countries of Western Europe French, English, Austrians and Germans ndash began to come in force to Rio de Janeiro and its neighboring states, especially in Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais(Serebrenick and Lipiner 31). Another large group emigrated from Morocco to the Amazon region. The two settlements the Amazon region and Rio de Janeiro did not seem keep any significant relations and had, moreover, some different characteristics (Grinberg 61). The Amazon community was more stable, while in the South, the Jews originating in Western Europe came in order to flourish and then return to their country of origin, although many would end up staying in Brazil (Grinberg 61). br / ?In the last decade of the nineteenth century Jewish immigration grew, multiplying the diversity in countries of origin and also the in regions where immigrants came to settle. Whereas until then the Jewish immigrants came almost exclusively from North Africa and Western Europe, now there were waves of Jewish immigrants from the Eastern Mediterranean Greece, Turkey, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine as well as Russia and neighboring countries. These settled mostly in the Southeast (Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais), but also spread out in smaller groups to many other states, both to the South and Northeast. br / ?Though the scope has been very limited and many details necessarily left out, I have sought to give a brief account of Jewish life in Brazilian history. The history of Jews in Brazil is a long and honorable history, dotted undoubtedly suffering, but also full of success, translated into positive and fundamental contributions to the development of the country and the training of its people ndash and that history that is still being written. /body /html POWERED BY TCPDF (WWW. TCPDF. ORG).

Data Mining or Knowledge Discovery

Data Mining or Knowledge Discovery SYNOPSIS INTRODUCTION Data mining is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information. Data mining or knowledge discovery, is the computed assisted process of digging through and analyzing enormous sets of data and then extracting the meaning of data. Data sets of very high dimensionality, such as microarray data, pose great challenges on efficient processing to most existing data mining algorithms. Data management in high dimensional spaces presents complications, such as the degradation of query processing performance, a phenomenon also known as the curse of dimensionality. Dimension Reduction (DR) tackles this problem, by conveniently embedding data from high dimensional to lower dimensional spaces. The dimensional reduction approach gives an optimal solution for the analysis of these high dimensional data. The reduction process is the action of diminishing the variable count to few categories. The reduced variables are new defined variables which are the combinations of either linear or non-linear combinations of variables. The reduction of variables to a clear dimension or categorization is extracted from the unusual dimensions, spaces, classes and variables. Dimensionality reduction is considered as a powerful approach for thinning the high dimensional data. Traditional statistical approaches partly calls off due to the increase in the number of observations mainly due to the increase in the number of variables correlated with each observation. Dimensionality reduction is the transformation of High Dimensional Data (HDD) into a meaningful representation of reduced dimensionality. Principal Pattern Analysis (PPA) is developed which encapsulates feature extraction and feature categorization. Multi-level Mahalanobis-based Dimensionality Reduction (MMDR), which is able to reduce the number of dimensions while keeping the precision high and able to effectively handle large datasets. The goal of this research is to discover the protein fold by considering both the sequential information and the 3D folding of the structural information. In addition, the proposed approach diminishes the error rate, significant rise in the throughput, reduction in missing of items and finally the patterns are classified. THESIS CONTRIBUTIONS AND ORGANIZATION One aspect of the dimensionality reduction requires more studies to find out how the evaluations are performed. Researchers find to finish the evaluation with a sufficient understanding of the reduction techniques so that they can make a decision to use its suitability of the context. The main contribution of the work presented in this research is to diminish the high dimensional data into the optimized category variables also called reduced variables. Some optimization algorithms have been used with the dimensionality reduction technique in order to get the optimized result in the mining process. The optimization algorithm diminishes the noise (any data that has been received, stored or changed in such a manner that it cannot be read or used by the program) in the datasets and the dimensionality reduction diminishes the large data sets to the definable data and after that if the clustering process is applied, the clustering or any mining results will yield the efficient results. The organization of the thesis is as follows: Chapter 2 presents literature review on the dimensionality reduction and protein folding as application of the research. At the end all the reduction technology has been analyzed and discussed. Chapter 3 presents the dimensionality reduction with PCA. In this chapter some hypothesis has been proved and the experimental results has been given for the different dataset and compared with the existing approach. Chapter 4 presents the study of the Principal Pattern Analysis (PPA). It presents the investigation of the PPA with other dimensionality reduction phase. So by the experimental result the obtained PPA shows better performance with other optimization algorithms. Chapter 5 presents the study of PPA with Genetic Algorithm (GA). In this chapter, the procedure for protein folding in GA optimization has been given and the experimental result shows the accuracy and error rate with the datasets. Chapter 6 presents the results and discussion of the proposed methodology. The Experimental results shows that PPA-GA gives better performance compared than the existing approaches. Chapter 7 concludes our research work with the limitation which the analysis has been made from our research and explained about the extension of our research so that how it could be taken to the next level of research. RELATED WORKS (Jiang, et al. 2003) proposed a novel hybrid algorithm combining Genetic Algorithm (GA). It is crucial to know the molecular basis of life for advances in biomedical and agricultural research. Proteins are a diverse class of biomolecules consisting of chains of amino acids by peptide bonds that perform vital functions in all living things. (Zhang, et al. 2007) published a paper about semi supervised dimensionality reduction. Dimensionality reduction is among the keys in mining high dimensional data. In this work, a simple but efficient algorithm called SSDR (Semi Supervised Dimensionality Reduction) was proposed, which can simultaneously preserve the structure of original high dimensional data. (Geng, et al. 2005) proposed a supervised nonlinear dimensionality reduction for visualization and classification. Dimensionality reduction can be performed by keeping only the most important dimensions, i.e. the ones that hold the most useful information for the task at hand, or by projecting the original data into a lower dimensional space that is most expressive for the task. (Verleysen and Franà §ois 2005) recommended a paper about the curse of dimensionality in data mining and time series prediction. The difficulty in analyzing high dimensional data results from the conjunction of two effects. Working with high dimensional data means working with data that are embedded in high dimensional spaces. Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is the most traditional tool used for dimension reduction. PCA projects data on a lower dimensional space, choosing axes keeping the maximum of the data initial variance. (Abdi and Williams 2010) proposed a paper about Principal Component Analysis (PCA). PCA is a multivariate technique that analyzes a data table in which observations are described by several inter-correlated quantitative dependent variables. The goal of PCA are to, Extract the most important information from the data table. Compress the size of the data set by keeping only this important information. Simplify the description of the data set. Analyze the structure of the observations and the variables. In order to achieve these goals, PCA computes new variables called PCA which are obtained as linear combinations of the original variables. (Zou, et al. 2006) proposed a paper about the sparse Principal Component Analysis (PCA). PCA is widely used in data processing and dimensionality reduction. High dimensional spaces show surprising, counter intuitive geometrical properties that have a large influence on the performances of data analysis tools. (Freitas 2003) proposed a survey of evolutionary algorithms of data mining and knowledge discovery. The use of GAs for attribute selection seems natural. The main reason is that the major source of difficulty in attribute selection is attribute interaction. Then, a simple GA, using conventional crossover and mutation operators, can be used to evolve the population of candidate solutions towards a good attribute subset. Dimension reduction, as the name suggests, is an algorithmic technique for reducing the dimensionality of data. The common approaches to dimensionality reduction fall into two main classes. (Chatpatanasiri and Kijsirikul 2010) proposed a unified semi supervised dimensionality reduction framework for manifold learning. The goal of dimensionality reduction is to diminish complexity of input data while some desired intrinsic information of the data is preserved. (Liu, et al. 2009) proposed a paper about feature selection with dynamic mutual information. Feature selection plays an important role in data mining and pattern recognition, especially for large scale data. Since data mining is capable of identifying new, potential and useful information from datasets, it has been widely used in many areas, such as decision support, pattern recognition and financial forecasts. Feature selection is the process of choosing a subset of the original feature spaces according to discrimination capability to improve the quality of data. Feature reduction refers to the study of methods for reducing the number of dimensions describing data. Its general purpose is to employ fewer features to represent data and reduce computational cost, without deteriorating discriminative capability. (Upadhyay, et al. 2013) proposed a paper about the comparative analysis of various data stream procedures and various dimension reduction techniques. In this research, various data stream mining techniques and dimension reduction techniques have been evaluated on the basis of their usage, application parameters and working mechanism. (Shlens 2005) proposed a tutorial on Principal Component Analysis (PCA). PCA has been called one of the most valuable results from applied linear algebra. The goal of PCA is to compute the most meaningful basis to re-express a noisy data set. (Hoque, et al. 2009) proposed an extended HP model for protein structure prediction. This paper proposed a detailed investigation of a lattice-based HP (Hydrophobic – Hydrophilic) model for ab initio Protein Structure Prediction (PSP). (Borgwardt, et al. 2005) recommended a paper about protein function prediction via graph kernels. Computational approaches to protein function prediction infer protein function by finding proteins with similar sequence. Simulating the molecular and atomic mechanisms that define the function of a protein is beyond the current knowledge of biochemistry and the capacity of available computational power. (Cutello, et al. 2007) suggested an immune algorithm for Protein Structure Prediction (PSP) on lattice models. When cast as an optimization problem, the PSP can be seen as discovering a protein conformation with minimal energy. (Yamada, et al. 2011) proposed a paper about computationally sufficient dimension reduction via squared-loss mutual information. The purpose of Sufficient Dimension Reduction (SDR) is to find a low dimensional expression of input features that is sufficient for predicting output values. (Yamada, et al. 2011) proposed a sufficient component analysis for SDR. In this research, they proposed a novel distribution free SDR method called Sufficient Component Analysis (SCA), which is computationally more efficient than existing methods. (Chen and Lin 2012) proposed a paper about feature aware Label Space Dimension Reduction (LSDR) for multi-label classification. LSDR is an efficient and effective paradigm for multi-label classification with many classes. (Brahma 2012) suggested a study of algorithms for dimensionality reduction. Dimensionality reduction refers to the problems associated with multivariate data analysis as the dimensionality increases. There are huge mathematical challenges has to be encountered with high dimensional datasets. (Zhang, et al. 2013) proposed a framework to inject the information of strong views into weak ones. Many real applications involve more than one modal of data and abundant data with multiple views are at hand. Traditional dimensionality reduction methods can be classified into supervised or unsupervised, depending on whether the label information is used or not. (Danubianu and Pentiuc 2013) proposed a paper about data dimensionality reduction framework for data mining. The high dimensionality of data can cause also data overload, and make some data mining algorithms non applicable. Data mining involves the application of algorithms able to detect patterns or rules with a specific means from large amounts of data, and represents one step in knowledge discovery in database process. OBJECTIVES AND SCOPE OBJECTIVES Generallydimension reduction is the process of reduction of concentrated random variable where it can be divided into feature selection and feature extraction. The dimension of the data depends on the number of variables that are measured on each investigation. While scrutinizing the statistical records data accumulated in an exceptional speed, so dimensionality reduction is an adequate approach for diluting the data. While working with this reduced representation, tasks such as clustering or classification can often yield more accurate and readily illustratable results, further the computational costs may also be greatly diminished. A different algorithm called Principal Pattern Analysis (PPA) is presented in this research. Hereby the desire of dimension reduction is enclosed. The description of a diminished set of features. For a count of learning algorithms, the training and classification times increase precisely with the number of features. Noisy or inappropriate features can have the same influence on the classification as predictive features, so they will impact negatively on accuracy. SCOPE The scope of this research is to present an ensemble approach for dimensionality reduction along with pattern classification. Dimensionality reduction is the process of reduction the high dimensional data i.e., having the large features in the datasets which contain the complicated data. The usage of this dimensionality reduction process yields many useful and effective results over the process in mining. The former used many techniques to overcome this dimensionality reduction problem but they are having certain drawbacks to it. The dimensional reduction technique enriches the execution time and yields the optimized result for the high dimensional data. So, the analysis states that before going for any clustering process, it is suggested for a dimensional reduction process of the high dimensional datasets. As in the case of dimensionality reduction, there are chances of missing the instruction. So the approach which is used to diminish the dimensions should be more corresponding to the whole datasets. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY The scope of this research is to present an ensemble approach for dimensionality reduction along with the pattern classification. Problems on analyzing High Dimensional Data are, Curse of dimensionality Some important factors are missed Result is not accurate Result is having noise. In order to mine the surplus data besides estimating gold nugget (decisions) from data involves several data mining techniques. Generally the dimension reduction is the process of reduction of concentrated random variables where it can be divided into feature selection and feature extraction. PRINCIPAL PATTERN ANALYSIS The Principal Component Analysis decides the weightage of the respective dimension of a database. It is required to reduce the dimension of the data (having less features) in order to improve the efficiency and accuracy of data analysis. Traditional statistical methods partly calls off due to the increase in the number of observations, but mainly because of the increase in number of variables associated with each observation. As a consequence an ideal technique called Principal Pattern Analysis (PPA) is developed which encapsulates feature extraction and feature categorization. Initially it applies Principal Component Analysis (PCA) to extract Eigen vectors similarly to prove pattern categorization theorem the corresponding patterns are segregated. The major difference between the PCA and PPA is the construction of the covariance matric. PPA algorithm for the dimensionality reduction along with the pattern classification has been introduced. The step by step procedure has been given as follows: Compute the column vectors such that each column is with M rows. Locate the column vectors into single matrix X of which each column has M x N dimensions. The empirical mean EX is computed for M x N dimensional matrix. Subsequently the correlation matric Cx is computed for M x N matrix. Consequently the Eigen values and Eigen vectors are calculated for X. By interrupting the estimated results, the PPA algorithm persists by proving the Pattern Analysis theorem. FEATURE EXTRACTION Feature extraction is an exception form of dimensionality reduction. It is needed when the input data for an algorithm is too large to be processed and it is suspected to be notoriously redundant then the input data will be transformed into a reduced representation set of features. By the way of explanation transforming the input data into the set of features is called feature extraction. It is expected that the feature set will extract the relevant information from the input data in order to perform the desired task using the reduced information of the full size input. ESSENTIAL STATISTICS MEASURES CORRELATION MATRIX A correlation matrix is used for pointing the simple correlation r, among all possible pairs of variables included in the analysis; also it is a lower triangle matrix. The diagonal elements are usually omitted. BARTLETT’S TEST OF SPHERICIY Bartlett’s test of Sphericity is a test statistic used to examine the hypothesis that the variables are uncorrelated in the population. In other words, the population correlation matric is an identity matrix; each variable correlates perfectly with itself but has no correlation with the other variables. KAISER MEYER OLKIN (KMO) KMO is a measure of sampling adequacy, which is an index. It is applied with the aim of examining the appropriateness of factor/Principal Component Analysis (PCA). High values indicate that factor analysis benefits and their value below 0.5 imply that factor suitable may not be suitable. 4.3.4MULTI-LEVEL MAHALANOBIS-BASED DIMENSIONALITY REDUCTION (MMDR) Multi-level Mahalanobis-based Dimensionality Reduction (MMDR), which is able to reduce the number of dimensions while keeping the precision high and able to effectively handle large datasets. MERITS OF PPA The advantages of PPA over PCA are, Important features are not missed. Error approximation rate is also very less. It can be applied to high dimensional dataset. Moreover, features are extracted successfully which also gives a pattern categorization. CRITERION BASED TWO DIMENSIOANL PROTEIN FOLDING USING EXTENDED GA Extensively, protein folding is the method by which a protein structure deduces its functional conformation. Proteins are folded and held bonded by several forms of molecular interactions. Those interactions include the thermodynamic constancy of the complex structure, hydrophobic interactions and the disulphide binders that are formed in proteins. Folding of protein is an intricate and abstruse mechanism. While solving protein folding prediction, the proposed work incorporates Extended Genetic Algorithm with Concealed Markov Model (CMM). The proposed approach incorporates multiple techniques to achieve the goal of protein folding. The steps are, Modified Bayesian Classification Concealed Markov Model (CMM) Criterion based optimization Extended Genetic Algorithm (EGA). 4.4.1MODIFIED BAYESIAN CLASSIFICATION Modified Bayesian classification method is used grouping of protein sequence into its related domains such as Myoglobin, T4-Lysozyme and H-RAS etc. In Bayesian classification, data is defined by the probability distribution. Probability is calculated that the data element ‘A’ is a member of classes C, where C = {C1, C2 †¦ CN}. (1) Where, Pc(A) is given as the density of the class C evaluated at each data element.

Bushs Speech to the Nation: Regaining Confidence :: Essays Papers

Bush's Speech to the Nation: Regaining Confidence On September 11 2001, the American public's image of continental security was shattered in the form of terrorist hijacked passenger planes slamming first into the world trade center towers in New York and then the Pentagon in Washington DC. America prior to the incident had been a peaceful unsuspecting economic giant. "Americans have known wars -- but for the past 136 years, they have been wars on foreign soil, except for one Sunday in 1941" (Bush par.11). The week following the suicide jet liner attacks found Americans filled with anger, fear, and a missing sense of direction. The public was at a complete loss concerning why the tragic act occurred and the steps that were being taken to overcome it. Only nine days after the attack, the public got its answers in the form of a presidential speech given from the capitol building in Washington DC. On September 20 2001, President George W. Bush's speech regained the public's confidence by speaking of justice, public safety, and unity. The most predominant strategy Bush uses to gain civic confidence is letting the public know justice will be delivered: "Our grief has turned to anger, and anger to resolution. Whether we bring our enemies to justice, or bring justice to our enemies, justice will be done" (par.5). This quote from Bush gives insight into why justice is an important topic for bringing America alive. Knowing the public is enraged and has revenge on its' mind, Bush shows a similar determination. In doing so, he reassures society that vengeance is on the right path. Bush makes the ultimate demands on the network of terrorist believed to be responsible, creating confidence from the publics desire for retribution: "Close immediately and permanently every terrorist training camp in Afghanistan, and hand over every terrorist, and every person in their support structure, to appropriate authorities. (Applause.) Give the United States full access to terrorist training camps, so we can make sure they are no longer operating. These demands are not open to negotiation or discussion"(par.21). According to former FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy, these requests are successful at reassuring the public because unconditional surrender is a convincing way to communicate to Americans that the President means business: "General U.S. 'Unconditional Surrender' Grant received unconditional surrender from General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox Court House to end America's bloodiest war. Such was never the goal in Vietnam or the Gulf War.

Federalism in India Essay

India is a big country characterized by cultural, regional, linguistic and geographical diversities. Such a diverse and vast country cannot be administered and ruled from a single centre. Historically, though India was not a federal state, its various regions enjoyed adequate autonomy from central rule. Keeping in view these factors in mind, the Constitution makers of India opted for the federal form of government. Though, the Government of India Act 1935 envisaged a federal set-up for India; federal provisions of the Act were not enforced. Thus, India became a federal polity with the Constitution of India. Federalism is a system of governance in which the powers to legislate is in two levels as Central and subordinate levels. Features of Federalism Federalism in India has a strong bias towards the Union Government. Some unique features of federalism in India are: * There is no equality of state representation. Representation in the Parliament can vary widely from one state to another depending on a number of factors including demography and total land area. * No double citizenship, i.e. no separate citizenship for country and state. * The consent of a state is not required by the Parliament to alter its boundaries. * No state, except Jammu and Kashmir, can draw its own Constitution. * No state has the right to secede. * No division of public services. The main features of Federalism * Provision for more than one form or government to act simultaneously on the same territory and on the same time. * Each government must have their own authority and spheres of power, though they may overlap. * Neither level of government, state or national can abolished the other. Why Federalism is Important? Federalism is important because of the following reasons: * Because of diversity, there is a division in the power of federalism (to legislate in better manner). * For better Administration. * Economic development in cultural diversity, linguistic groups, traditions, customs, natural resources. The concept is taken from U.S.A. in 1776 and at the time of U.S. government independence. How Democracy is linked with Federalism? In a democracy, the involvement of people at state level is more, as the people are free to choose their own representatives, for the people, of the people, by the people. What makes India a Federal Country? India is a vast country with numerous languages, religions and regions. The concept of federalism plays a vital role and the power sharing arrangements plays a crucial role in maintaining unity and harmony in the country. India got its independence in 1947 but it also resulted in painful partition that paved way to the formation of Pakistan. After independence, several princely states became a part of the country and the constitution declared India as a Union States. Despite the fact that the word federalism is not used or implied with Indian Union but it is largely based on the principles of federalism. All the above key features of federalism are well suited to the provisions of the Indian Constitution. The constitution of India provided two tiers of levels of governments â€Å"Central or Union Governments representing the Union of India and the state governments. Later, a third tier or level of federalism was formed and added in the forms of Panchayats and Municipalities. These three different tiers of governments enjoy separate jurisdictions and the constitution provides a three- fold distribution of legislative powers between the Union governments and the state governments. It comprises of three major lists and they are as follows: – 1. Union List: – This list includes subjects of national importance such as defence, foreign affairs, banking, communications and currency. They form as the part of Union list as we need a uniform policy on these important matters throughout the country. Union or Central government can only make laws relating to these above mentioned important subjects. 2. State List: – This list contains subjects of state and local significance and state governments alone can make laws relating to subjects like police, trade, commerce, agriculture and irrigation. 3. Concurrent List: – It can also be termed as co-existing list and includes subjects of common interest to both the Union Government as well as the State Governments. It includes subjects like education, forest, trade unions, marriage, adoption and succession. Both levels of government (Union and State governments) can make laws on these subjects. If their laws conflict with each other then the law made by the Union Government will reign and succeed. How is Federalism practiced? The success of federalism in India cannot be merely attributed to constitutional provisions but to the nature of democratic politics in our country. It ensured that the spirit of federalism, respect for diversity and desire for living together became a common goal in our country. The major reasons in which federalism has succeeded in our country are as follows: – 1. Linguistic states: – The formation of linguistic states was the first major test for democratic politics in India. There were lots of changes in democratic politics of our country from 1947 to 2006. In India, many old states have vanished while many states have been created. Even the names of areas, boundaries and states were changed during this period. In 1947, the year of independence, the boundaries of many old states were changed in order to create new states. It was done to ensure that the people speaking same language should reside in same state. It led to formation of some states that were created not on the basis of language but to recognise differences based on culture, ethnicity or geography. It includes states like Nagaland, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand. There was fear of disintegration by some national leaders in our country when there was demand for the formation of states on the basis of language was raised. Earlier central government resisted linguistic states but the experience has shown that their formation has made country more united and integrated. It made administration procedure easier and opened doors of opportunities for everybody. 2. Language policy: – Our constitution has not given the status of national language to any one language. Language policy proved second major test for India federation and finally Hindi was identified as the official language of the country. Hindi, the official language of country proved to be mother tongue of only 40 percent of India and therefore there were many safeguards to protect other languages. Besides Hindi, constitution recognized 21 another languages as scheduled languages. All the states had their own official language and much of government work took place in the official language of the concerned states. Our leaders adopted a cautious and vigilant attitude in spreading the use of Hindi in India. According to Indian constitution, the usage of English for official use has to be stopped by 1965 but many non-Hindi speaking states resented it violently and wanted to continue with English. In Tamil Nadu, the movement took ugly turn as it turned into violent agitation. Thereafter, Central government responded positively and agreed to continue with usage of English along with Hindi for official purposes. But still Government of India continues to have encouraged the promotion of Hindi in their official policy. It does not mean that central government can impose Hindi on states where people speaks their own regional languages. 3. Centre State Relations: – The concept of federalism was strengthened to large extent by restructuring of centre and state governments relationships. It also largely depends on how the leaders of ruling party follow these arrangements. In India, the same party ruled both at the centre and at the most of the states. It means that the state governments did not exercise their rights as autonomous federal units. There were occasions where the parties at centre and state were different and in such cases central government tried to undermine the powers of state government. In those days, central government misused the constitution to dismiss the state governments that were governed by opposition parties. It undermined the spirit of federalism to large extent. After 1990, there was significant changes as the country saw the rise of regional parties in many states of the country. It was the arrival of the era of coalition governments at the centre. It led to new culture of power sharing and created a respect for the autonomy of state governments. This new trend was supported by a major judgment of Supreme Court that made difficult for Central government to dismiss state governments in an illogical manner. Federal power sharing holds more significance in today’s time than in early years when constitution came into force. Conclusion There are still other subjects that don’t fall in any of these lists. These subjects are computer software that came much after the formation of constitution in India. According to our constitution, Union government has the power to legislate on these left over or untapped subjects. Generally, it is learnt that holding together federations do not give equal power to its constituents so all states in Indian Union does not have identical powers. Jammu and Kashmir has its own constitution and enjoys special status and many provisions of Indian constitution are not applicable in this state. There are some units of Indian Union that enjoys very little power and these are areas which are too small to be recognized as an Independent state and could not merged with any other states. They are referred to as Union Territories and include areas like Chandigarh, Lakshadweep and Delhi, capital city of India. These territories do not have the powers of the state as Union or Central Government runs these areas with their special powers. It is not easy to make changes to the power sharing arrangements of Union and state governments as it has to be passed with both the houses of parliament with at least two-third majority. After its approval from both the houses of parliament, it has to be authorized or ratified by the legislatures of at least half of the total seats. In case of disputes about the division of powers, the High court and Supreme Court makes the decisive decision. Both Union and State governments have the power to raise resources by imposing taxes in order to carry on the government and the tasks allocated to them.

Dubois and Washington in the Pre-Civil Rights Era essays

Dubois and Washington in the Pre-Civil Rights Era essays To clearly assess the view of Du Bois' essential points of disagreement with Washington, today's reader must consider Washington as one of the disenfranchised whom he spoke for. Du Bois declared that the appeal of Washington's program was aimed at enterprising national leaders who sympathized with the South's leaders "... pressure of the money- makers..."(Du Bois 45) Washington had not grown to leadership in such an atmosphere of African American intellectual progress and real social interaction of the races, as did Du Bois. He would have seen no hope for a more liberal social policy. Therefore, Washington's and Du Bois' programs were based on a difference in a view that equal civil rights for ex-slaves would be the fundamental "starting point" of the race's advancement. With the surrender of most southern leaders to Jim Crow, the southern government favored economic advancement of the ex-slave above universal manhood suffrage, hoping that the federal government would no longer support advancement of the freedmen. This was evidenced by the failure of the Freedmen's Bureau. In The Souls of Black Folk Du Bois called it "- one of the most singular and interesting of the attempts made by a great nation to grapple with vast problems of race and social condition." (Du Bois 17) In light of the conflict of the Bureau with the local government, which did not intend to allow African American social advancement, it was bound for In "Of the Sons of Master and Man", Du Bois further describes the psychological turmoil of the post-reconstruction South. "The inevitable period of retrogression and political trickery that ever follows in the wake of a war over took us."(Du Bois 124) He reminded the reader that both ruling classes of the political South and political North washed their hands of politi...

Developing the Best Supply Chain Strategy for Hong Kong †Economics Research Paper (400 Level Course)

Developing the Best Supply Chain Strategy for Hong Kong – Economics Research Paper (400 Level Course) Free Online Research Papers Developing the Best Supply Chain Strategy for Hong Kong Economics Research Paper (400 Level Course) Objectives This study is to analyze how companies develop the best supply chain management strategy for Hong Kong. We mainly focus on the methods using by companies. Other than this, we also suggest what government can do to support a best SCM. It is because the success of practicing the best SCM not only depends on company’s internal structure, but also depends on support of government. Based on our knowledge, we try to analyze the opportunities and challenges facing to Hong Kong. Also, we show that how companies grasp the chances to develop SCM. Background As there is a change of consumer value, it is a must to have a change of management. At the very beginning, consumer mainly focus on the price of goods, they intend to buy the cheapest goods no matter how difficult to get those products. Time to time, their mindsets change to focus on the qualities of products. That is the slogan ‘right time, right quality, right place’ nowadays. The qualities, customer services and convenience become the important part of considering the consumption. Apart from this, western culture is influencing Hong Kong day by day. As the supply chain management had already been developed early in 90 century in western countries, we can see the advantages of practicing supply chain management. From knowing the benefits of SCM, the practice of SCM is inevitable in order to gain more profits and enlarge business size. Therefore, many firms and companies are trying to employ skilled persons with SCM knowledge so that they can build up a SC in their companies. Not only company urges to develop SCM, Hong Kong government also supports and encourages Hong Kong companies to develop SCM. Frequently, HK government tries to provide some courses about SCM. These courses are much cheaper than those provided by private organization. It also builds some roads and ports for practicing SCM effectively Methodology. All information are collected by the newspaper, Internet and reference books. Definition of Supply Chain Management Strategy The concept of SCM strategy is not straightforward. Some elements of strategy have universal validity and can be applied to any firm, regardless of its nature. Others appear heavily dependent on the firm’s structure, culture, and economic environment. SCM strategy is a coherent, unifying, and integrative pattern of decisions. It determines and reveals the organization’s purpose of supply chain activities in terms of the firm’s long-term objectives, action programs and resource allocation priorities. It attempts to support or achieve for the firm a long-term, substantial advantage by responding properly to opportunities and threats in the firm’s environment. A SCM strategy must be comprehensive; meanwhile, it must be break down the complex web of decisions into analyzable piece. Opportunity What is opportunity ? Opportunity is a chance for companies to develop SCM strategy There are 3 main opportunity for companies to develop the SCM strategy. Hong Kong Exports Trends Consumer and Retail Trends China entry into WTO 1. Hong Kong Export Trends In 1996, total exports through Hong Kong reached the level of US$ 181 billion. Though the export trade is still increasing, the growth rate has weakened to only 4% in 1996, from 21 % in 1992. According to the statistic, the total exports in Hong Kong tend to decrease after 1997. From 1991 to 1997, the rate of increase of the exports is decrease, from 1991, +21%, to 1997, +3%. In 1998, the exports is decrease and its dollar of export is 172.3 billion US dollars because of financial crisis. Although the exports sharply increases in 2000, the percentage decrease between 2000 and 2001 is 5%. The tendency line is decrease or level. According to the government statistic, by comparing January 2002 with January 2001, decreases were recorded in the value of domestic exports of goods to Germany (-48.2%), Singapore (-43.3%), the United States (-35.0%), Malaysia (-31.1%), the United Kingdom (-28.9%), Canada (-24.0%), the Netherlands (-16.1%) and Japan (-6.5%). On the other hand, the value of domestic exports of goods to the Mainland and Taiwan rose by 11.4% and 6.9% respectively China is the largest trading partners. From the result above, only China increases because the economic in China is increasing strongly. Most goods are needed Hong Kong as a middleman to export the goods to the other countries before China enter into the WTO. Since the USA, Germany and United Kingdom are the three largest western trading partners for Hong Kong’s consumer goods export industry. The decrease of total exports is due to the competition from Central/South American, Eastern European, Indian or Caribbean suppliers of consumer goods. These countries are the strong competitors in the key markets of the USA, UK and Germany. The market in these three largest countries has lost a significant market share by the global competitor. Caribbean and Central America took a larger share of imports into the US. Eastern Europe and Turkey gained import shares especially for Germany. A larger proportion of British import orders went to suppliers from India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Mauritius. The loss of market share because the sourcing practices has restructured the method and timing. Traditional pre-season orders are increasingly being replaced by last minute ordering budgets, with more replenishment orders being placed in the light of actual sales. Retailers should gain more flexibility to adopt the unexpected consumer trends. In these competitor can provide more choice for the USA, UK and Germany to select the products. On the other hand, Hong Kong also uses the traditional method to produce the products and goods, which is not flexibility to meet the USA, UK and Germany needs. The price in Hong Kong is greater than those competitors. Free-trade agreements (e.g. NAFTA) between the western economics and the new sourcing regions only provide a partial explanation of the shift of sourcing patterns towards other countries including those mentioned above. Retailers’ needs for speeding sourcing and replenishment services are a more significant factor. In order increase the competitive, the SCM strategy should be developed. The SCM can increase the goods flexibility, which can get a higher on-shelf performance and lower price of the goods. Quick response and value chain are also needed to provide a good customer services.2. Western Consumer and Retail Trends Consumer Trends In 80’s, quality, price and time were the main factors influencing consumers’ purchasing decisions. However, in 1990s’, the desire for convenience, constraints, upon time and greater interest in entertainment have added new challenge for the retail industry in the US and Europe. Besides consumer today focus on the financial security, health care, comfort and safety. Moreover, high tax and cost of medical care are the major expenditure. Therefore, the expenditure on consumer goods decrease due to growing expenses. According to the 1997 Consumer Pulse Survey in the USA, over half of consumers agree that they have less leisure time now than before, while 62% admit to working longer hours now than ever before. In 1995 consumers spent averaged 4.3 hours per month on shopping. Consumers are prefer to spend more on enjoyment than go to shopping. In Europe and other areas the trends is similar, people tends to reduce the shopping time and spend more time on other activities. Some people describe shopping as a â€Å"hassle†. According 1997 KSA Consumer Pulse Survey Showed that 68% of consumers walk into a store with a clear idea of what they want to buy, but they run a nearly 50% chance of being disappointed. 68% of consumer enter a store with clear idea then 81% don’t like the style 67% not suitable size 66% price too high 59 % doesn’t fit 49 % can’t find what they are looking for source: KSA the statistic shows that 49 % of consumer want to spend money buying goods; however, the goods are not fit, price is too high, the style is not good. Retailer trends Considering these changing consumers’ trends, retailers must do some policies to attract the consumers. Retailers should change their strategies to satisfy the customers needs. The strategies includes increase availability, replenish products regularly, shorten product development lead times and quick response. These strategies are the supply chain strategy. Retailers have reconfigured their supply chains in order to ensure better availability of merchandise in their stores. Hong Kong companies no matter the exporter, retailer, supplier, should adopt these changes and meeting the consumers needs. As a result, Hong Kong companies should develop SCM in order to avoid eliminating through the competition because the consumers are the main source of income in the company. 3. China entry into the WTO Potential Market in China After China enters into the WTO, all walks of life will be open. Facing the large potential market foreign investors will invest lots of capital in China such as building the manufacturing industry. China Government forecast that after China enters into the WTO, the GDP will be greater 1 trillion Yuan. The import and export in China also increase stable from 1996 to 2001. This shows that the volume of imports and exports in China will continuous increase because the entry into the WTO. After entry into the WTO, all countries are treated as fair as possible. The regulations in exports and imports will less than before. The quota of imports and exports will decrease. In order to perform the fairness in the WTO, China will break down business who are monopoly. The foreign investors can wholly have a company. The statistic also shows that the consumer power in China is very strong. We can predict that the consumer power in China market will increase strongly after China enter into the WTO. Hong Kong challenge The tradition position in Hong Kong has changed. The goods do not need to go into Hong Kong and then go into the China. After entry into the WTO, goods can directly flow into China. Hong Kong Opportunity The logistic in China are still at the beginning stage whatever the software and hardware. In logistic, the warehouse facilities, distribution center, road, port and airport are not efficiently run. The people who are lack of knowledge of logistic and SCM. Hong Kong can focus on the SCM which provide a effective and efficient way to distribute the goods and the value chain to have a quick response in customer, supplier and consumer. The future road for Hong Kong is to develop an efficient logistic network in China in order to increase re-export volume between China and other countries. Hong Kong can reply on its good import and exports relationship and logistic network to China and foreign countries act as a stepping-stone for foreign companies to invest in China. Since Hong Kong has a effective airport and port the goods can flow into the Hong Kong and distribute to other regions in China. To face the huge consumer market in China, Hong Kong companies can act as the agent of foreign products and help the products to go into the China market successfully because Hong Kong has a good experience and relationships in China market. As a result, it should have a good marketing concept and strategy and good SCM strategy to maintain a good services to satisfy the customer needs. The challenge Firstly, Hong Kong businessmen have silo thinking, many information is available in each supply chain members, but they are reluctant to share it due to a lack of trust and a fear that the information will be revealed to competitors. Secondly, different facilities in the supply chain may have different, conflicting objectives. For example, manufacturers objective of making large production batches typically conflicts with the objective of both warehouses and distribution centers to reduce inventory. As a result, conflict management in interorganizational relationships is becoming increasingly difficult to manage. Thirdly, there is communication problem in the supply chain. Supply chain members come from different area of the industry and come from different country. Since the different cultures, languages and specific knowledge, it is difficult for them to communicate and cooperate. Fourthly, there are not enough trainee and infrastructures in Hong Kong. Supply chain management is still a new concept for many Hong Kong businessmen. It is essential to provide a number of professions in SCM . But it is costly for businessmen to take a course. Also, the infrastructures are not enough. There is traffic jam during peak hours in Hong Kong. Fifthly, SCM increase the cost of transportation. To apply the JIT and get a zero inventory, increasing frequency of transport inventory is needed. As a result, the transportation cost is increased. Sixthly, Hong Kong faces a strong competitor. Hong Kong ports and logistics services providers are recognized as having the edge in SCM operations experience compared with their mainland counterparts. Shanghai and Guangzhou, will become more competitive with Hong Kong within the next five years. They had been making steady progress in building up their information technology and transport infrastructure. Chinas State Economic and Trade Commission data indicate the market is worth about 100 million Yuan (about HK$93.76 million). With its gigantic manufacturing base and domestic market, Chinas import and export traffic through the Pearl River Delta, as well as demand for third-party logistics services will grow by leaps and bounds. And admission to the World Trade Organization was accelerating infrastructure development programs. Seventhly, the ability to control outsource suppliers is diminished.Many companies are shifting the control of their reputation to outsiders. The outsourcing phenomena may have come into vogue to offset the rate and magnitude of corporate downsizing. But, if critical components of the companys core competency have been outsourced, their competitive resiliency is compromised. As the external environment continues to place pressure on companies, the ability to control outsource suppliers is diminished. Eighthly, HK companies have a week security in Internet. According to a research made by Productivity council in 2000,many companies in HK do not have a strong security in computer. In the three thousand interviewees, 76% out of three thousand interviewees just use the base Internet security technology like antiviral software and password. To develop a supply chain management system, many advanced IT to several aspects of its business including its allocation of resources, process control, product distribution, procurement and online sales are needed. Review: Before planning the supply chain management strategies, we should review the structure, human recourses available, technology level available, location of administration center and distribution center and the inventory needed of a company Structure An organization is the result of the organizing process. it refers to a group of people working together to achieve a common objective (develop the supply chain management strategies).To facilitate achievement of the objective ,a clear structure of the organization should help the people in the organization reach their objective. Organizational structure is the organization’s framework in which activities are organized and co-ordinated. Communication is a very important part in supply chain. A clear structure of the organization should fulfill the principle of chain of command and unity of command. Chain of command is the paths an order should take from the highest to the lowest levels of management. Response and feedback also travel along the same chains back up to the higher management levels. It seems that it will slow down the communication process as orders or responses have to pass through layers of management before they reach their final destinations, but using supply chain strategies it can improve the speed of communication. Besides chain of command, unity of command also is important, it means that each person reports to only one superior, it can ensure that a subordinate will get orders from only one source. If a subordinate reports to more than one superior, he may receive conflicting orders from different superiors at the same time. He will be very frustrated, as he does not know which order should be followed. So it can improve the speed of market response. Human Resource Management As employees are very important to the success or the objective achievement of a company so human resources planning is very important to implement the supply chain strategy. The first step is to forecast human resources requirement, for example, the talent of supply chain and the number of employee in each departments needed. The next step is to compare and find ways to eliminate the discrepancies between the availability of human resources and the forecasting of human resources requirement. There are some ways to deal with the surplus and the shortage of employees, for example, hiring, promotion, transfer, training, and dismiss redundant personnel Location If a company want to develop a supply chain system, its administration center must not located at the place where is difficult to gather information, as the most important part of the supply chain is communication, such as customers feedback and market situation. Then the distribution center and the warehouse cannot be located in the place where is inaccessible and high land cost, the reasons are the customer today require company has flexible delivery of products and the company need to lower its inventory cost according to increase the competitive power. Technology level (hardware) The importance of information and the supporting technology, to supply chain management is evident, determining which specific systems and application can provide a specific supply chain with the greatest benefit is very important . In the development and maintenance of the supply chain’s information systems, the technology level must be addressed. Analyze the technology level within the company is suitable for supply chain system or not. That means the company needs to computerize the system in all departments. It can improve the communication efficiency among different departments and partners. For example, the inventory level in the warehouse can be monitored and order the material in right quantity and right time. Inventory needed Depend on each case, the company needed to decide that the materials are purchased from one major supplier or few suppliers. If the company chooses one major supplier, the company may have some discount and have a better relationship with the supplier. However, if the company chooses few suppliers, it can lower the risk of depending on one major supplier for example the delay of delivery or production in the major supplier. As there is a risk of delay of delivery, to avoid the stock out cost, inventory or safety stock may be needed. However the company needs to consider the feather of the product and the customer’s requirements then the company can decide the inventory level. For example, the company will not keep many perishable inventories. Supply chain operation strategy In the supply chain operation strategy, it involves the implementation of technology equipment and managerial skills for enhancing communication between the inter-departments that are under the same company. To take an example, the sales department can know how many products or semi-products in the inventory when they use the Internet system. It is meaningless to talk about the concept of supply chain strategy if the inter-department is lack good communication. The second purpose of supply chain operation strategy is enhancing communication between inbound and outbound partner. In fact, many companies in Hong Kong such as Park’N shop and Johnson Johnson have used the EDI and the EAN/UCC system. Under the EDI system, the formatted data can be transferred between the Park’N shop and Johnson Johnson computer system. Using the EDI can reduce the paperwork which can reduce the administration cost as well as human resources. Staff can be re-deployed to other more value-added functions within the organization. And also, EDI can transfer the large volumes of commercial data between the business partner in a matter of minutes, enabling faster response and increasing ECR efficient Customer Response. Since EDI can reduce the paperwork, it can eliminate the inevitable errors resulting from manual data input. EDI also enables companies to better manage and control production, purchasing and delivery requirements. EAN/UCC system can provi de unique global product identification to the business partner. It can save the time and human resources for product identification and checking the amount of inventory. Both Johnson Johnson and Park’N shop have agreed and established a forecast model which includes forecast quantity, safety stock and service level and lead time. Under this model, Johnson Johnson can share the daily stock-on hand and ex-warehouse data through EDI, to generate daily-proposed purchase order in EDI for Park’N shop. Not only the information flow can increase by using technology equipment such as EDI, but also it can be enhanced by the human communication. To take an example, Watsons the Chemist and Procter Gamble has formed a cross-functional team. It involves the representatives from marketing, sales, merchandising, operations, logistics and IT functions from the both side. In this cross-functional team, they have the opportunity to develop the same goal which can increase the relationship between the Watsons the Chemist and Procter Gamble. Since many business in Hong Kong such as Watsons the Chemist, Procter Gamble, Park’N shop and Johnson Johnson have implemented the concept of supply chain for many years, many people who are experienced in managing the supply chain in Hong Kong. The most important thing is they are top level and middle level managers who have good conceptual and communication skill. It can help to develop the best supply chain strategy respect to experienced mangers. Compared with other Asian country, many businesses in Hong Kong implemented the supply chain equipment with high efficiency. Logistics strategy Logistics strategy is the strategy of planning, implementing, controlling the efficient, effective flow and storage of goods, services and related information among the supply chain partner to satisfy the customer’s need at dynamic environment. Under this strategy, it involves the Cross docking, ASN (Advanced Shipping Notice) and Dispatch Advice. Cross docking is the term for the process that allows a retailer to receive the goods at the distribution center and process them for direct store delivery without further handing. The main advantages of using the Cross docking is reduce the warehouse cost and improve the lead-time. I Inventory management is one of the important steps of applying successful logistics strategy. Many vendors take active to develop the tracing and monitoring of sales performance and replenishment needs from their customers. The risky of stock out can be reduced. It also helps to receive valuable trend information for product development for the next seasons. Many companies such as wellcome and seven eleven used logistic strategy to control the good flow. In the recent, many businesses develop the logistics services to their customer. To take an example, Sun logistics provides â€Å"One Shop† a service that meets the customer’s needs to move goods in a manner that balances the speed with the cost effectiveness. They provide for the their customers to warehouse management, inventory management, delivery service and value-added services such as in-house labeling, packaging and price-tagging services to support special promotions and re-export operation. To conclude, not only the supply chain partner use the logistic strategy, but also other companies provide logistic service to the customers. Compared with other country, we can see that a lot of companies in Hong Kong use or offer logistic strategy. Therefore, Hong Kong can develop the logistic strategy respect to the human resources as well as the equipment such as multiple strategically located warehouses. Relationship strategy Relationship strategy is a main cause in developing the best supply chain management strategy in Hong Kong. Having a good relationship between each party, it will be smoother in dealing business and solving problem with them. Indeed, Hong Kong is a suitable place for companies developing a good relationship between its partners, suppliers and customers. It is because Hong Kong’s technology is so advanced. Having advanced technology, information will be exchanged more efficient and accurate. Then, it may eliminate much unnecessary technical or paperwork problem with other parties. Relationship will then easily build up. In Hong Kong, it has put so much effort on information technology education; therefore, there are many IT talents to support the supply chain management. Also, Hong Kong people always chase the trend of technology all over the world. It leads to improve the process of supply chain management more efficient and efficiency. Frankly speaking, trust is a main element of establishing good relationship between every party and trust is correlation. Even if our technology is so advanced, we cannot establish good relationship with our stakeholders without trust. Therefore, trust will be the main focus on developing good relationship strategy between suppliers, partners and customers. Firstly, from suppliers’ point of view, they want to have an exact demand scheduling of their customers. However, if suppliers are still using paperwork or working with low technology, it is difficult for company to exchange accurate information. Therefore, electronic database interchange (EDI) is needed. If suppliers have not installed such technology, their customer will persuade them to install it. On the other hand, if suppliers have installed EDI, it is encouraged to fully utilize such technology in order to exchange information more accurate and faster. On the other hand, if there is suppliers cooperate with company for the first time. Short-term contract of one to two years can be signed with them in order to protect both of parties. As both parties do not have any transaction before, it may occur many invisible problems after cooperating. Many problems have not occurred with existing suppliers may appear with the new one; therefore, short-term contract will be encouraged. Moreover, regular evaluation with suppliers will be needed too; no matter it is new one or existing one. It is because company can solve many problems during evaluation. For example, if a company discovers that one product’s quality is always out of standard, company can discuss it during evaluation. Within evaluation, company may understand suppliers’ difficulty on manufacturing such product, then, company can suggest solution to the suppliers. This kind of evaluation is not only aiming at problem solving, but also mainly at building up a trustee relationship with them. Indeed, company may also share both problem on transaction process, services etc. After a certain period of evaluation with the new suppliers, long-term contract will be proposed to sign if both parties are willing to do so. It is because company has already built up good relationship with their suppliers. . Actually, having a good relationship with suppliers can help a company operation more efficiently. It is because any problems existing between suppliers will cause ultimate effect on end customers. We value the relationship with suppliers as well as the customers’ relationship. Besides suppliers’ relationship, partners’ relationship is important too. In Hong Kong, keen competitive is everywhere. In order to enhance competitive power and bargaining power, cooperating with a company’s competitors is suggested in developing the best supply chain management strategy. Then, those competitors will become the company’s strategic partners. During cooperation, there is suggesting three â€Å"Joints†. They are joint procurement, joint transportation and joint research and development. Firstly, joint procurement means companies jointly purchase their supplies. One good example is Cathy Pacific. After joint procurement with One World Alliances, Cathy Pacific is successfully reducing US$3.5million cost. Obviously, joint procurement is practicable. It is increasing not only the procurement value, but also the bargaining power against suppliers and competitive power within its industry. Secondly, joint research and development is also suggested. In which companies and companies can jointly take a research on product development. For example, SCE and Sony are jointly developing the most advanced semiconductor technology with Toshiba and IBM respectively. And this most advanced semiconductor technology will be used on the central process unit (CELL) of Play Station 3. Therefore, it can share the cost and risk of research and development in each company. Lastly, joint transportation of strategic partner can also be adapted. Because suppliers may not fully utilize the capacity of cargo shipment, using joint transportation can greatly reduce the transportation fee. Several decades ago, the customer value to the goods was just based on the price. Later they concerned more on the quality, price and time. But nowadays, more and more customers are concerning element, SERVICE. Since the change of customer value, reducing the price in order to maintain the customers’ loyalty is not adoptable. As a result, suppliers have to change their operating, logistics and relationship strategy to satisfy the changes of customer value. The most important thing in improving the relationship between supplier and customer is to increase the service providing to customers. Companies should at least satisfy the several primary factors such as the product design, product price, service, etc. Apart from these factors, if companies can satisfy the extra needs of customer, it will maintain or increase the loyalty of customer. Company should set some principles or rules to staff when servicing customers. Also, customers responses must be realize and regard seriously. Over 60% of customers leave companies because of the shortcoming in customer services and caring. Therefore, companies have to react as soon as possible in order to keep customers base on the efficient customer service management. Total quality management is one of the methods to maintain the quality of product. It can ensure the quality of product is at standard. One of the techniques is six sigma quality. This quality controlling can reduce the defect rate to nearly 0%. Although it is impossible to reduce the defect to 0, it can at least increase the satisfaction of customer and maintain their loyalty to the product. Since the main purpose of companies nowadays is not to attract new customer, but to keep the existing customers. As mentioned before, the information flow of Hong Kong is advanced; company can react to the customer in a short time to reduce the waiting time of customer. In recent years, the after sales service is common throughout the world. This kind of services is to increase the customer loyalty also. But if there is lack of reviewing processes of customer relationship management, there will be less progress on the services provided. In this changing world, little improve of services will forces the customers to shift to other companies. If companies can practice these activities, they can develop a information feedback from customer for future improvement. In customer relationship, quick customer response is important. It is because if company reacts to customers slowly, customers will think the company neglects them. Hence, customers will leave the company. If companies make use of high technology to react faster to cope with customers needs, company can then maintain customers’ loyalty. For example, the Q A section in the homepage of company. Government Support To develop the best supply chain management strategy, the participation of companies is not enough. The role of government is also important. However, Hong Kong government is not fully participating in the development, but just act as a supportive role because of non-intervention policy. Therefore, we suggest a few points to government in order to help to develop the best supply chain for Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, the number of parking space of cargo ship is just eighteen; it cannot afford the average daily number of ship which is 108. Hong Kong cargo terminal still uses the 19th century method, which is using the barge to load the cargo from the cargo ship and ship to terminal. As a result, it increases the transportation processes and the transportation cost. To tackle this problem, Hong Kong government should build more infrastructures such as cargo ship parking area to reduce the loading process and to satisfy the huge daily number of cargo ship. Hong Kong government can also announce the consultant report to small-middle enterprises. This gives companies a clear guideline and future government policy. Companies can develop their own supply chain according to the government policy. For example, companies can setup their warehouses near to the harbor terminal or airports in order to decrease the transportation cost or design the transportation network. Recently, the Hong Kong Productivity Council has sent the report of research on Hong Kong’s transportation and trading sectors to relevant sector for strategic planning in order to meeting the change and challenge in the coming decades. Most of companies realize the importance of supply chain recently, but they are lack of the knowledge, capital and talent. Because developing a good supply chain system is costly. The government can subsidize companies to develop the supply chain system. Although the Hong Kong Trade Development Council is providing fund for small-medium enterprises (SME), the number of successful applicant is small. This means the approval standard is very high and difficult to apply for the fund. As a result, the fund is not effective and this will discourage the company to apply the fund and create disincentive the development of supply chain management. So, the Hong Kong Trade Development Council should lower the approval standard to make more companies obtain the fund for developing the supply chain system. Moreover, Hong Kong government is helping tertiary institution to develop the courses about the supply chain and logistics to training the professional for this sector. After Mainland China entering WTO, the trading activities with Hong Kong will become frequent. The role of Mainland will become more important also. To help the development of companies in Hong Kong and in Mainland, Hong Kong government should contact the province government especially Guangdong province government and Pearl River Delta government. Because of the rapid business activities in these two regions, the government support can help to develop the supply chain such as cooperate the ports in the region and the Hong Kong Kwai Chung Cargo Terminal. The ports in the region can act as backup role of Kwai Chung Cargo Terminal. Also, both Hong Kong and Mainland government can build a cross-harbour steel bridge in order to make a direct transport of goods from other places to Hong Kong. Since Hong Kong has efficient transportation network, Hong Kong should act as the main character amount other cities in the region. All the goods are transferred to Hong Kong from other region and ma king use of the Hong Kong International Airport; all the goods from the region can immediately distribute to other places and act as a distribution hub. Although Hong Kong is has the advantage on exploring Mainland market, the information and the legal aspect of Mainland is not clear. Therefore, government should set up some organization for company to develop the supply chain in Mainland or in other regions. The Hong Kong Productivity Council will setup 9 offices in different cities in Guangdong province to develop the supply chain, legal support, etc . The checking procedure in Lok Ma Chau Border Crossing is complicated that this will increase the queuing time of lorry. Hong Kong and Shenzhen government should simplify the procedure and increase the working hour to 24-hours service. The transportation of goods of companies will become more flexible. This can help company to improve the quality and on time delivery of product. One of basic element of developing the best supply chain is technology support. In Hong Kong, the technology is enough to support the rapid information. But the software of supply chain is inadequate. There is little number of software company in Hong Kong is developing supply chain programme for Hong Kong. Therefore, Hong Kong government can subsidize software companies to develop a suitable supply chain programme to Hong Kong companies. In recent years, the internet shopping and transaction is common. However, the restriction of internet shopping and transaction is limited. Government is still drafting the context of the rules. If government finish the legistration as soon as possible, E-shopping will become more acceptable in Hong Kong. This will improve the B2C, B2B and C2C. Companies no longer to setup a retailer shop and wait for the customers. It can reduce the cost of employing forefront salesman. And this can also increase the customer responses and opinion through the inter net. Even there is a good supply chain system; lack of promotion cannot attract more foreigners to invest in Hong Kong. Because of the investment will bring the capital, technology and talent into Hong Kong, therefore, the Hong Kong government should promote Hong Kong is a good logistics and supply chain center to other countries. Several months ago, Mr. Tsang has promoted Hong Kong as a logistics and supply chain center during his public speech. Conclusion After studying this report, there are opportunities and challenges for Hong Kong to develop the best supply chain management strategy. If companies and government make use of it and follow the strategies that mentioned before, then it will help to develop a good supply chain center in Hong Kong. In developing the supply chain, government support is very important, especially the cooperation in infrastructure. However, Hong Kong government is giving little support to companies. It is hard time to companies to survive without the support from government. Although government started to concentrate on developing logistics activities, the legistration procedures are so complicated that make Hong Kong losing the competitive power. If Hong Kong government reduces the legistration procedures, more effective infrastructure and policy can be carry out. It will really make Hong Kong become the world known supply chain center and practicing the best supply chain management strategy. Reference Books â€Å"Introduction to Supply Chain Management†, Robert B.Handfield, Ernest L.Nichols, Jr â€Å"Supply Chain Management, strategy, planning and operation†, Sunil Chpora, Peter Meindl Supply Chain Management in Global Trade†, KSA Newspaper South China Morning Post iMail Ta kung pao Ming Pao Internet www.wisenews.net/hkpublic www.yahoo.com.hk www.sina.com.hk www.singtao.com www.mingpao.com www.info.gov.hk/censtatd Census and Statistic Department www.stats.gov.cn National Bureau of Statistic of China www.hkpc.org Hong Kong Productivity Council www.yahoo.com www.tdctrade.com Hong Kong Trade Department Council Research Papers on Developing the Best Supply Chain Strategy for Hong Kong - Economics Research Paper (400 Level Course)Analysis of Ebay Expanding into AsiaOpen Architechture a white paperThe Project Managment Office SystemPETSTEL analysis of IndiaInfluences of Socio-Economic Status of Married MalesDefinition of Export QuotasMoral and Ethical Issues in Hiring New EmployeesBionic Assembly System: A New Concept of SelfMarketing of Lifeboy Soap A Unilever ProductRiordan Manufacturing Production Plan

Aphasia; an impairment of language function Essay Example

Aphasia; an impairment of language function Essay Example Aphasia; an impairment of language function Essay Aphasia; an impairment of language function Essay The ability to comprehend words processed non-auditory, suggests that the entrap semantic representation of words is intact, but the auditory lexicon input is detached from previous semantic knowledge. This results in a patients ability to process speech sounds, and reproduce them both orally and to dictation but have no comprehension of the words meaning. Laptop and Funnel (1981 ) argued this selective impairment to be of great theoretical significance because it indicates that there must be separate processes for written language and phonological encoding, otherwise written comprehension would be just as impaired as auditory comprehension, in all asses of aphasia. This essay will explore a case study of abstract word meaning deafness, firstly by describing how the case study was conducted and what pattern of results was found. The text will then evaluate whether the findings reliably imply a separate proves for phonological input and written abstract word processing through orthographic analysis, therefore providing evidence for Patterson Shells (1987) argument for auditory and visual processes in their lexical processing model. Finally this discussion will weigh the strength of the experiments findings and claimed implications, against issues of method, alternative implications and additional research to form a developed conclusion on how far abstract word meaning deafness can reliably illuminate functions of healthy language. Franklin S, Howard D, Patterson K (1994) ran extensive tests over a two year period on a patient that exhibited damaged auditory comprehension of abstract but not concrete words to test how the patients performance could reflect Patterson Shells 1987 processing model of lexical organization, by identifying a specific phonological semantic processing fault. The patient (DRY) suffered a stroke aged 54 causing a left middle coverall infract, Drys hearing and IQ was undamaged and was found to be normal. The patient underwent TV0 years speech therapy three times a week before the experimenters began a through 2 yearlong examination of Drys impairment. Franklin et el ran multiple tests aiming to establish the patients impairment at an auditory- semantic level. Key experiments tested auditory lexical decisions by getting ORB to match words with pictures. Analysis Of ORBs errors indicated whether e was making phonological errors (such as selecting a picture of an iron for the word lion,) or semantic errors (such as selecting a picture of a cat for the word lion. Further tests were conducted to test auditory, written, and speed( sound interpretation abilities of semantic proves through word repetition AR written dictation. The experimenters established DRY had an impaired auditory understanding of abstract words (such as love) but not concrete words, (e. G. Chair) with a full comprehension of all types of written words. The as shown in Drys ability to match abstract words with pictures, suggesting access to semantic lexical information was intact through the visual proves. However DRY made semantic errors when the same words were presented through auditory information. The lower the instability and more abstractness of the word resulted in more semantic errors. Furthermore the lack of phonological errors in correct auditory lexical decisions implies the impairment of comprehension is semantic rather that phonological. Word frequency and familiarity had no significant effect on correct phonological 01 mantic decisions. This pattern of impairment of auditory semantic comprehension and preserved phonological abilitys and written word comprehension matches the symptoms of pure word meaning deafness specified in the introduction. However the patient Was unable to write or repeat non-words indicating an impairment of the process of speech sound! Which would not be expected in a perfect case of abstract word meaning deafness as full phonological encoding should be completely intact with only) semantic comprehension impaired. That said the majority of these findings purport an abstract word meaning deafness diagnosis providing evidence FCC a word meaning deficit. This condition establishes an argument for separate; auditory and written systems within models of language, thus supporting Patterson Shells 1987 processing model of lexical information. This model defines the process of auditory comprehension of words in a three part system. There is an initial auditory analysis of speech sounds, which the provides access to correct word forms in auditory input, allowing aces to word meaning within the cognitive system. The model identifies an process for written word comprehension begging in orthographic rather that auditory analysis. Franklin et al argues Drys pattern of impairment could BC explained in terms of damage to the second stage of auditory input, consequently denying access to word meaning through the auditory process ± but allowing access to the same words meaning through the preserved written word process. Conversely Drabs inability to reproduce non words could indicate an issue with the early phonological encoding that the experiments tests were too insensitive to find. This would suggest a potential overlap between phonological and semantic encoding, disproving Patterson et alls model. The experimenters counterbalance this argument bi suggesting that this impairment is a separate deficit resulting from the stroke which could be reasonably expected as stoke induced aphasia patients often suffer multiple language deficits. Caber, Tare A. -Z. K. Parsons, Fay Augusta Vides 2011) However although this suggestion could be consider viable HTH F-rankling et al accepts no empirical evidence can be offered to prove the explanation of the patients inability to process speech sound within the context of Patterson model, and consequently the theory requires further case studies of word meaning deafness to provide a reasonable argument fool word meaning deafness. Supporting evidence can be found in Hall and Riddances (1997) case study of an aphasia patient (K) with impaired auditor) comprehension with intact written comprehension mimics Drys pattern of symptoms and supports Franklins findings. Unlike DRY the patient was able to repeat and correctly write both real and non-words regardless of impression, demonstrating an isolated impairment of auditory semantic aces. These findings strengthen Freidmans argument for DRY having a separate language deficit which would account for his inability to reproduce non words. However due to the rare nature of word deafness research into this field is not large enough to be conclusive as external variables could be skewing the results. One potential issue in methodology is the assumption 0 full patient motivation when recording the results. DRY underwent extensive amounts Of language tests which would be hugely demanding on a covering aphasia patient. Most of the failed comprehension tests were responded to by dont know, stating he cant hear the word. But the experimenter acknowledges it is unlikely his comprehension is all or nothing. This contradiction between the experimenters expectation and the patients direct reports indicate that DRY s results may not completely reflect his abilitys as he could have lacked the motivation to try and access more difficult processing information. Nevertheless the study was incredibly thorough, a very detailed analysis of Drabs abilitys in over fifteen different sets in over two years is likely to accommodate for most i ssues of low motivation, as the pattern of abilitys was established across a great wealth ii texts. Furthermore this experiment was one of the first language studies not to only focus on the correct or incorrect answer but test how difficult DRY found responding by tests of word fluency in comparison with a healthy control group, thus proving a far more accurate representation of the patients impairment than previous research. As the study was began two years after the stroke occurred it would have been of interest to complete a allow up study 5-10 years later to review what impairments have been recovered.

Ethics, Abolition of Man Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1250 words

Ethics, Abolition of Man - Essay Example e related to the traditional morality when in fact when new values are established, the person himself influencing such values is a product of the tradition morality from which he had been nurtured. One then cannot deny the relationship to one’s traditional values. This can be attributed to the fact that when one establishes values, there is only one way of classification, that is being traditional or the established one. Thus, complete rejection of tradition values is required for the new ones to be accepted, which can be considered a great challenge specifically when values are also related to the actions of the social surroundings. One cannot separate himself from his community. For that matter, in the determination of values and ethics, the social interaction is one of the important factors (p. 27-30). The main point discussed in the second chapter is the real nature of values. It is a common notion that values and ethics can be related to the actions and obligations of a person for the good of the many. For that matter, doing a good deed for example can be perceived as an act that can benefit a larger portion of the population. In times wherein there is conflict between the good of the community and the good of a person, the person needs to sacrifice himself. This can be in general one of the utility of the person in the community, to save it or sacrifice for it. Basically, this is one of the notions for which morality can be achieved. This can be attributed to the fact that people commonly seek self preservation. The traditional values then can be viewed to have been established on the basis of the need of the people during the corresponding time and became values through practice and through the development of norms (p. 27-52). Lewis argues that utility though cannot be a source of ethical obligation since the said concepts are distinct. Utilitarianism is on self preservation and viewing the events and elements of the surroundings as a tool